50 Fairy Stories Page 11

  “Enough,” said the young man to himself. “I’ve got it.” Then, crawling away noiselessly, he ran back all the way to his house, and unlocked the door. Once inside the room, he called out his servant’s name:

  “Siwsi! Siwsi!”

  Astonished at hearing her name, she cried out, “What mortal has betrayed me? For, surely no fairy would tell on me? Alas, my fate, my fate!”

  But in her own mind, the struggle and the fear were over. She had bravely striven to keep her fairyhood, and in the battle of wits, had lost.

  She would not be a wife, but what a wise, superb and faithful servant she made!

  Everything prospered under her hand. The house and the farm became models. Not twice, but three times a day, the cows, milked by her, yielded milk unusually rich in cream. In the market, her butter excelled, in quality and price, all others.

  In the end, she agreed to become his wife – but only on one condition.

  “You must never strike me with iron,” she said. “If you do, I’ll feel free to leave you, and go back to my relatives in the fairy family.”

  A hearty laugh from the happy lover greeted this remark, made by the lovely creature, once his servant, but now his betrothed. He thought that the condition was very easy to obey.

  So they were married, and no couple in all the land seemed to be happier. Once, twice, the cradle was filled. It rocked with new treasures that had life, and were more dear than farm, or home, or wealth in barns or cattle, cheese and butter. A boy and a girl were theirs. Then the mother’s care was unremitting, day and night.

  Even though the happy father grew richer every year, and bought farm after farm until he owned five thousand acres, he valued, more than his many possessions, his lovely wife and his two beautiful children.

  Yet this very delight and affection made him less careful concerning the promise he had once given to his fairy wife, who still held to the ancient ideas of the fairy family in regard to iron.

  One of his finest mares had given birth to a filly, which, when the day of the great fair came, he determined to sell at a high price.

  So with a halter on his arm, he went out to catch her. But she was a lively creature, so frisky that it was much like his first attempt to win his fairy bride. The lively and frolicsome beast scampered here and there, grazing as she stopped, as if she were determined to put off her capture as long as possible.

  So, calling to his wife, the two of them together tried their skill to catch the filly. This time, leaving the halter in the house, the man took bit and bridle, and the two managed to get the pretty creature into a corner, but, when they had almost captured her, away she dashed again.

  By this time, the man was so vexed that he lost his temper, and he who does that, usually loses the game, while he who controls the wrath within, wins. Mad as a flaming fire, he lost his brains also and threw the bit and bridle and the whole harness as far as he could, after the fleeting animal.

  Alas! Alas! The wife had started to run after the filly and the iron bit struck her on the cheek. It did not hurt, but he had broken his vow.

  Now came the surprise of his life. It was as if, at one moment, a flash of lightning had made all things bright, and then in another second was inky darkness. He saw this lovely wife, one moment active and fleet as a deer. In another, in the twinkling of an eye, nothing was there. She had vanished. After this, there was a lonely home, empty of its light and cheer.

  But by living with human beings, a new idea and form of life had transformed this fairy, and a new spell was laid on her. Mother-love had been awakened in her heart. Henceforth, though the law of the fairy world would not allow her to touch again the realm of earth, she, having once been wife and parent, could not forget the babies born of her body. So, making a grass raft, a floating island, she came up at night. And often, while these three mortals lived, this fairy mother would spend hours tenderly talking to her husband and her two children, who were now big boy and girl, as they stood on the lake shore.

  Even today, good people sometimes see a little island floating on the lake, and point it out as the place where the fairy mother used to come and talk with her dear ones.

  Graciosa and Percinet

  By Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

  READING TIME: 15 MINUTES

  Once upon a time there lived a king and queen, who had an only daughter named Graciosa. She was all her mother’s joy. At the same court was an elderly young lady named Duchess Grognon, who was the very opposite of Graciosa. Her hair was fiery red, her face fat and spotty, and she had but one eye. Her mouth was so big that you might have thought she could eat you up, only she had no teeth to do it with. She was also humpbacked and lame. Of course she could not help her ugliness, and nobody would have disliked her for that, if she had not been of such an unpleasant temper that she hated everything sweet and beautiful, and especially Graciosa. She had also a very good opinion of herself, and when any one praised the princess, would say angrily, “That is a lie! My little finger is worth her whole body.”

  In course of time the queen fell sick and died, and her daughter was almost broken-hearted. So was her husband for a year, and then he began to comfort himself by hunting. One day, after a long chase, he came to a strange castle, which happened to be that of the Duchess Grognon. She, informed of his approach, went out to meet him, and received him most respectfully. As he was very hot with hunting, she took him into the coolest place in the palace, which was a vaulted cave, most elegantly furnished, where there were two hundred barrels arranged in long rows.

  “Madam, are these all yours?” inquired the king.

  “Yes, sire, but I shall be most happy if you will taste their contents. Which wine do you prefer?” and she ran over a long list, out of which his majesty made his choice.

  Grognon took a little hammer, and struck – toc toc – on the cask, from which there rolled out a handful of silver money. “Nay, what is this?” said she, smiling, and passed on to the next, from which, when she tapped it, out poured a stream of gold coins. “I never saw the like – what nonsense!” and she tried the third, out of which came a heap of pearls and diamonds, so that the floor of the cave was strewn with them.

  “Sire,” she exclaimed, “someone has robbed me of my good wine, and put this rubbish in its place.”

  “Rubbish, madam! Why, such rubbish would buy my whole kingdom.”

  “It is yours, sire,” replied the duchess, “if you will make me your queen.”

  The king, who was a great lover of money, replied eagerly, “Certainly, madam, I’ll marry you tomorrow if you will.”

  Grognon, highly delighted, made but one other condition – that she should have the Princess Graciosa entirely in her own power, just as if she had been her real mother, to which the foolish king consented.

  When the king returned home, Graciosa ran out with joy to welcome her father, and asked him if he had had good sport in his hunting.

  “Yes, my child,” said he, “for I have taken a dove alive.”

  “Oh, give it me, and I will nourish and cherish it,” cried the princess.

  “That is impossible, for it is the Duchess Grognon, whom I have promised to marry.”

  “She a dove! She is rather a hawk,” sighed the princess in despair, but her father bade her hold her tongue, and promise to love her stepmother.

  The obedient princess went to her apartment, where her nurse soon found out the sorrow in her face, and its cause.

  “My child,” said the good old woman, “Promise me to do your best to please your father, and to make yourself agreeable to the stepmother he has chosen for you. She may not be so bad after, all.”

  And the nurse gave so much good advice, that Graciosa began to smile, and dressed herself in her best attire – a green robe embroidered with gold – while her fair, loose-falling hair was adorned, according to the fashion of the day, with a coronet of jasmine, of which the leaves were made of large emeralds.

  Grognon, on her part, made the best of hers
elf that was possible. She put on a high-heeled shoe to appear less lame, she padded her shoulders and put in a false eye, then dressed herself in a hooped petticoat of violet satin trimmed with blue, and an upper gown of yellow with green ribands. In this costume, she wished to enter the city on horseback, as she understood queens were in the habit of doing.

  Meantime, Graciosa waited in fear the moment of her arrival, and, to pass the time away, she went all alone into a little wood, where she sobbed and wept in secret, until suddenly there appeared before her a young page, whom she had never seen before.

  “Who are you?” she inquired, “and when did his majesty take you into his service?”

  “Princess,” said the page, bowing, “I am Percinet, a prince in my own country. I have loved you long, and seen you often, for I have the fairy gift of making myself invisible. I might longer have concealed myself from you, but for your present sorrow, in which, however, I hope to be of both comfort and assistance – a page and yet a prince, and your faithful love.”

  At these words, at once tender and respectful, the princess, who had long heard of the fairy prince Percinet, felt so happy that she feared Grognon no more. They talked a little while together, and then returned to the palace, where the page assisted her to mount her horse, on which she looked so beautiful, that all the new queen’s splendours faded into nothing in comparison, and not one of the courtiers had eyes for any except Graciosa.

  Soon after, the king, who knew that his wife’s weak point was her vanity, gave a tournament, at which he ordered the six bravest knights of the court to proclaim that Queen Grognon was the fairest lady alive. No knight ventured to dispute this fact, until there appeared one who carried a little box adorned with diamonds, and proclaimed aloud that Grognon was the ugliest woman in the universe, and that the most beautiful was she whose portrait was in the box. He opened it, and behold the image of the Princess Graciosa!

  The princess, who sat behind her stepmother, felt sure that the unknown knight was Percinet, but she dared say nothing. The contest was fixed for next day, but in the meantime, Grognon, wild with anger, commanded Graciosa to be taken in the middle of the night to a forest a hundred leagues distant, full of wolves, lions, tigers and bears.

  Graciosa, in solitude and darkness, groped through the forest, sometimes falling against the trunks of trees, Graciosa and Percinet sometimes tearing herself with bushes and briers. At last, overcome with fear and grief, she sank on the ground, sobbing out, “Percinet, Percinet, have you forsaken me?”

  When she spoke, a bright light dazzled her eyes, the midnight forest was changed into glittering alleys, at the end of which appeared a palace of crystal, shining like the sun. She knew it was the doing of the fairy prince who loved her, and felt a joy mingled with fear. She turned to fly, but saw him standing before her, more handsome and charming than ever.

  “Princess,” said he, “why are you afraid of me? This is the palace of the fairy queen my mother, and the princesses my sisters, who will take care of you, and love you tenderly. Enter this chariot, and I will convey you there.”

  Graciosa entered, and passing through many a lovely forest glade, where it was clear daylight, and shepherds and shepherdesses were dancing to merry music, they reached the palace, where the queen and her two daughters received the forlorn princess with great kindness, and led her through many rooms of rock-crystal, glittering with jewels.

  She spent eight days in his palace – days full of every enjoyment – and Percinet tried all the arguments he could think of to induce her to marry him, and remain there forever. But the good and gentle Graciosa remembered her father who was once so kind to her, and she preferred rather to suffer than to be wanting in duty. She entreated Percinet to use his fairy power to send her home again, and meantime to tell her what had become of her father.

  “Come with me into the great tower there, and you shall see for yourself.”

  Thereupon he took her to the top of a tower, prodigiously high, put her little finger to his lips, and her foot upon his foot. Then he bade her look, and she saw as in a play upon the stage, the king and Grognon sitting together on their throne. The latter was telling how Graciosa had hanged herself in a cave.

  “She will not be much loss, sire, and as, when dead, she was far too frightful for you to look at, I have given orders to bury her at once.”

  The sight of her father’s grief quite overcame Graciosa. “Oh, Percinet!” she cried, “my father believes me dead. If you love me, take me home.”

  The prince consented, though very sorrowfully, saying that she was as cruel to him as Grognon was to her, and mounted with her in his chariot, drawn by four white stags. As they quitted the courtyard, they heard a great noise, and Graciosa saw the palace all falling to pieces with a great crash.

  “What is this?” she cried, terrified.

  “Princess, my palace, which you forsake, is among the things which are dead and gone. You will enter it no more till after your burial.”

  “Prince, you are angry with me,” said Graciosa sorrowfully, only she knew well that she suffered quite as much as he did in thus departing and quitting him.

  Arrived in her father’s presence, she had great difficulty in persuading him that she was not a ghost, until the coffin was taken up, and Grognon’s trickery discovered But even then, the king was so weak a man, that the queen soon made him believe he had been cheated, that the princess was really dead, and that this was a false Graciosa. Without more ado, he abandoned his daughter to her stepmother’s will.

  Grognon, transported with joy, dragged her to a dark prison, took away her clothes, made her dress in rags, feed on bread and water, and sleep upon straw. Forlorn and hopeless, Graciosa dared not now call upon Percinet. She doubted if he still loved her enough to come to her aid.

  Meantime, Grognon had sent for a fairy, who was scarcely less cruel than herself. “I have here,” said she, “a little wretch of a girl for whom I wish to find all sorts of difficult tasks. Pray assist me in giving her a new one every day.”

  The fairy promised to think of it, and soon brought a skein as thick as four persons, yet composed of thread so fine, that it broke if you only blew upon it, and so tangled that it had neither beginning nor end. Grognon, delighted, sent for her poor prisoner.

  “There, miss, teach your clumsy fingers to unwind this skein, and if you break a single thread I will flay you alive. Begin when you like, but you must finish at sunset, or it will be the worse for you.” Then she sent her to her miserable cell, and treble-locked the door.

  Graciosa stood dismayed, turning the skein over and over, and breaking hundreds of threads each time. “Ah! Percinet,” she cried in despair, “come and help me, or at least receive my last farewell.”

  Immediately Percinet stood beside her, having entered the cell as easily as if he carried the key in his pocket. “Behold me, princess, ready to serve you, even though you forsook me.” He touched the skein with his wand, and it untangled itself, and wound itself up in perfect order. “Do you wish anything more, madam?” asked he coldly.

  “Percinet, Percinet, do not reproach me. I am only too unhappy.”

  “It is your own fault. Come with me, and make us both happy.” But she said nothing, and the fairy prince disappeared.

  At sunset, Grognon eagerly came to the prison door with her three keys, and found Graciosa smiling and fair, her task all done. There was no complaint to make, yet Grognon exclaimed that the skein was dirty, and boxed the princess’s ears till her rosy cheeks turned yellow and blue. Then she left her, and overwhelmed the fairy with reproaches.

  “Find me, by tomorrow, something absolutely impossible for her to do.”

  The fairy brought a great basket full of feathers, plucked from every kind of bird – nightingales, canaries, linnets, larks, doves, thrushes, peacocks, ostriches, pheasants, partridges, magpies, eagles – in fact, if I told them all over, I should never come to an end – and all these feathers were so mixed up together, that they could n
ot be distinguished.

  “See,” said the fairy, “even one of ourselves would find it difficult to separate these, and arrange them as belonging to each sort of bird. Command your prisoner to do it. She is sure to fail.”

  Grognon jumped for joy, sent for the princess, and ordered her to take her task, and finish it, as before, by set of sun.

  Graciosa tried patiently, but she could see no difference in the feathers. She threw them all back again into the basket, and began to weep bitterly. “Let me die,” said she, “for death only will end my sorrows. Percinet loves me no longer – if he did, he would already be here.”

  “Here I am, my princess,” cried a voice from under the basket, and the fairy prince appeared. He gave three taps with his wand – the feathers flew by millions out of the basket, and arranged themselves in little heaps, each belonging to a different bird.

  “What do I not owe you?” cried Graciosa.

  “Love me!” answered the prince, tenderly, and said no more.

  When Grognon arrived, she found the task done.

  If a fairy could be strangled, Grognon certainly would have done it in her rage. At last, she resolved to ask help no more, but to work her own wicked will upon Graciosa.

  She caused to be dug a large hole in the garden, and taking the princess there, showed her the stone which covered it.

  “Underneath this stone lies a great treasure. Lift it up, and you will see.”

  Graciosa obeyed, and while she was standing at the edge of the pit, Grognon pushed her in, and let the stone fall down again upon her, burying her alive. After this, there seemed no more hope for the poor princess.

  “Oh Percinet,” cried she, “you are avenged. Why did I not return your love, and marry you? Still, death will be less bitter, if only you regret me a little.”